“It was a fisherman who had left the coast earlier that night,” Sopanen said. “All that blasted herring made the road slicker than the slickest black ice. But our old Saab got through it. We turned a few pirouettes in the fish slush and skidded from side to side for a ways. But we still got the delivery van forced over to the side. Then we gave the driver a
ride
in for a blood test. He had an easy
0.2
running through his veins. He said he’d been hauling fish to the old market hall and had
just
had
two beers
while
he
was sorting out
the nets.”
Sopanen ended his story with a sad shake of his head. It hadn’t been very many months since the old Saab had reached the end of its road and been taken to the wreckers. He sighed nostalgically. “She was quite
a ride.”
The Rusko industrial area was a thicket of workshops, warehouses, and repair shops that had sprung up on the east side of Hervanta between the residential areas and the forest. In the dark autumn night, the place looked even more desolate than usual. There was just enough rain drizzling that the windshield wouldn’t stay dry without the drowsy wipers. The asphalt shone in the pale light of the street
-
lamps, and the wind danced the yellow birch leaves around on the
sidewalks.
They saw motion in the parking
lot of a bakery built of white-
painted cinder block. A dark figure walked along the side of the building, and soon the lights of a car switched on in the parking lot. Sopanen slowed down, and a tense Saari squinted in hopes of it turning out to be a donut thief. The car pulled out of the parking lot and turned
toward
Hervanta. It was a black VW Golf with a security company’s dog logo adorning its side. As he drove past, the driver gave a friendly wave, just like any other of their colleagues.
The SS Patrol did not respond to the greeting.
Sopanen continued on, driving through
the parking lot of a
vehicle
inspection station. He then made a U-turn and looked at his watch.
“The night bus should be coming soon. Should we go have a look?”
Saari didn’t say anything, and Sopanen set off driving back west. Their Ford Mondeo sedan crawled along the deserted street
at
about twenty miles an hour. Sopanen guided the patrol car into the lot of the Shell station and parked facing the main road. It was a good place to wait for the last bus arriving from the city. It was a weekday night, and the bus left downtown at ten minutes past midnight.
The service station’s hamburger joint had just closed. Saari watched in the rearview mirror as a nimble girl wiped down the tables. The strap of her baseball cap lifted her ponytail up so it bounced pertly, and suddenly Saari was hungry. But it was still too early. If he munched a burger now, it would be a long night. He had a habit of not eating until three o’clock at the Hervanta Grill just before it shut its window. His diet varied from
burger with a
fried egg to the Tampere Tech Take-out
Special. The latter contained everything you
could imagine, fried on a grill, with double relish.
T
he French fries had been dunked in boiling fat. Sopanen, on the other hand, made it through the night with just a thermos of coffee and the sandwiches his wife made. She filled t
hem
with thick slices of garlic cheese, and after their break the whole car stank for the next two hours.
The bus
would
n’t come for another five minutes, so
Sopanen opened his door, stretched his left leg out, and lit a cigarett
e. He blew the smoke out toward
the sky.
“We’ll see how the Axes do against Turku on Thursday,” he said, without turning his head.
“Yep,” Saari mumbled evasively, but Sopanen was in a talking mood.
“With the defensive game they showed against the Blues last night
,
they’re sure to screw it up. They looked like a bunch of peg-legged line dancers. The centers were standing around like they had a trouser full and Ojanen looked like he had forgotten how to skate backwards.”
Saari felt like sticking his fingers in his ears. Just a few years earlier he had been a defender
on
the Tampere Battle Axes
in the
Finnish Elite League. He had
been
p
aired up with
Timo Jutila
for a few years after Timo had
returned to Finland
from the
Buffalo Sabres
. The peak of
Saar
i
’
s career had been an invitation to the national team’s training camp, but that was it. And there was the subtle difference: a few games for the national team and from there to the NHL, Sweden, or Central Europe, and h
e would have been set for life.
But a little over-enthusiasm and a couple of mistakes at the camp had made the
coaches turn their back on him
. And because of that he had to stay up all night being paid
peanuts to guard sleeping citizens from crooks and malcontents. Was it any wonde
r he didn’t want to talk hockey
?
The 23 saved him from having to listen to Sopanen’s commentary. The bus was already crossing the canyon bridge. It turned right at the traffic lights and drove past in front of them. There were only a handful of passengers onboard. But Sopanen still tossed his cigarette butt onto the wet grass, closed the door, and started the car. He set off following the bus about sixty feet back. It didn’t stop for the first time until Opiskelija
Street
, a third of a mile later. Only one passenger got off, a young Asian woman, who
took
off running with her head hunched, trying to get out of the intensifying rain as quickly as possible.
Passengers continued trickling off the bus every now and then. The residents of Hervanta had only just barely recovered from the weekend, so the night between Monday and Tuesday wasn’t luring them out to their usual nocturnal pursuits.
A man running down the street caught Saari’s attention.
D
ressed in a green-gray tracksuit and black baseball cap
,
h
e was pushing against the wind and rain, bent over forwards, and didn’t seem to notice the police car.
“Hey!” Saari exclaimed, turning to look through the back window after the jogger. “Did you see who that was?”
“Somebody from Finland’s Most Wanted
?” Sopanen let off the gas. “Should we pick him up?”
“No, it was Koskinen.”
“Koskinen who?”
“The lieutenant from Violent Crime.”
“Oh, that Koskinen,” Sopanen said with a sneer. “What the hell’s he doing outside in this weather at this time of night?”
“Looks like he’s jogging.”
Sopanen turned onto Arkkitehti Street and
accelerated
to catch
up to
the bus, which had already made it a way down the street. He snorted as if to punctuate his previous sentence. “Lunatic.”
It felt odd to Saari too. But he thought it
was
wise to keep his mouth shut. Day by day, or more like night by night, his goal was looking
clearer and clearer.
Someday he was going to work on Koskinen’s team.
As soon
as
he racked up enough courses and credits at the police
academy
, he would
apply for
Koskinen’s team
in
the Violent Crimes Unit. He wasn’t going to waste his life listening to
a partner who stank of tobacco and garlic telling hockey stories night after night.
A bearded bear of a man got off the bus at the next stop. He threw a large bag over his right shoulder and took a few meandering, stumbling steps. It looked like the weight of the bag would pull him over. He managed to stay upright, though, and turned with staggering but purposeful steps toward the sidewalk. Sopanen didn’t bother following him any farther
;
even in that condition
,
he should be able to find his way home.
The night bus continued on its way. Following it seemed like a waste of the state’s gas, so Sopanen turned left at the next intersection, toward the center of Hervanta. They could lurk at the corner by the Cupola Pub for a few minutes, since sometimes the boys from Tampere Tech still had
enough
energy left
to
party on
Mondays
too
.
He hadn’t even managed to really step on the gas before Saari yelled, “Stop!”
“What now?”
“There was some shiny contraption in those bushes.”
Sopanen glanced at his partner with suspicion. “Contraption? What the hell do
you
mean, ‘contraption?’”
“It was shiny, and it had wheels,” Saari said, scratching his neck hesitantly. “Like a wheelchair or something.”
“Not a rocking chair?” Sopanen guffawed, irritating Saari.
“Let’s turn back and check it out.”
Sopanen shook his head in disgust. “Not worth the trouble. How about being content believing it’s a shopping cart lifted from the corner store. Drunk kids always ride them around the neighborhood.”
They argued for a few more seconds, until Sopanen sighed with demonstrative condescension. “Well, let’s go look then, so you don’t lose any sleep tomorrow.”
He lifted his foot off the gas pedal and glanced in the rearview mirror
.
“We’ll flip a U-ey here as soon as that bike passes.”
Saari could also see the motorcycle in his own mirror.
The rider was slowing down in sync with Sopanen, and then suddenly swung back the way he had come.
“Uh-oh, is he heading back to take a look at your mysterious beer cart too?” Sopanen laughed dryly. The tires squealed as he made a sudden U-turn on the wet
asphalt.
Saari didn’t bother responding to Sopanen’s ribbing. He looked bitterly at the bike in front of them—it looked like a 500cc. At that same moment, the motorcycle accelerated, and Sopanen forgot about his role as wise-ass.
“Why’s this dude in such a hurry all of a sudden?”
“How do you know it’s a dude?” Saari was still sulking. “It could be a girl in that helmet just as easily.”
“It’s a dude. Mark my words...”
Sopanen left his sentence unfinished when the motorcycle swung onto Arkkiteh
ti Street
. The driver crouched down over the motorbike and accelerated aggressively.
“Tell me that
guy
isn’t trying to get away,” Sopanen exclaimed, bending his own neck forward. “These punks never learn.”
Saari’s back pressed into the seat as the
Ford
shot into a greedy pursuit. Sopanen switched on the roof strobes, and soon blue light was blazing in the windows of the buildings on both sides of the street.
“The dude probably though
t
we were slowing down to pull him over.”
Sopanen
squeezed the steering wheel.
“And that’s exactly what we’re gonna do. Let’s see what he’s got on his record,” he hissed through his teeth.
The street was deserted, and so he let the speedometer climb to sixty-five
miles per hour
. Still the motorcycle’s taillight
had
already
reached
the end of the street, and then disappeared to the right.
“That ain’t your granny’s moped
,
” Sopanen thundered. “We need some help right now, or he’s gonna get away.”
Saari grabbed the microphone and alerted dispatch about the fleeing motorcycle. Soon the radio traffic increased in a crackling exchange of words, and two patrol cars set off from downtown toward Hervanta.
The motorcyclist turned right at the next intersection, and Saari broadcast the new direction over the radio. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a man jogging and started wondering how Koskinen had made it this far already. However, he forgot all about him almost immediately as the front tires grazed the curb, and the car swerved dangerously. Sopanen had made the turn without
barely
lifting his foot off the gas. Saari knew it was pointless to
try to
rein him in. His prey drive had kicked in like a greyhound bolting after lure on a track—deaf to the shouting of the crowd.
The Ford
had only made it halfway down the street when the motorcycle
was
already
at
the next intersection. After that everything happened in one or two seconds, and the moment was recorded in each man’s consciousness like a piece of film advancing frame by frame.